Effect of Central Sensitization in Patients with Familial Mediterranean Fever, Axial Spondyloarthritis, and Both Diseases, 2023, Nur Kaya et al

Objective: Our aim in this study was to evaluate the level of central sensitization (CS) in patients having familial Mediterranean fever (FMF), axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA), and both diseases (axSpA/FMF).

Methods: This study included 30 FMF, 30 axSpA, 30 axSpA/FMF patients, and 30 healthy controls (HCs). The presence of CS was investigated by the Central Sensitization Inventory (CSI) questionnaire. In order to evaluate the effect of CS on patient groups, clinical features, disease activity, quality of life, sleep quality, depression, and anxiety frequency were examined. The patients were divided into groups according to the presence and severity of CS and their results were compared.

Results: The mean age of all participants was 28.4±5.7 years and 67 (55.8%) of them were male. The erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) value was significantly higher in axSpA and axSpA/FMF groups than in FMF and HCs groups (p<0.001). ESR value was significantly higher in the FMF group than in the HCs group (p<0.001). C-reactive protein (CRP) value was significantly higher in the axSpA/FMF group than in the axSpA and HCs groups (p=0.001). CSI-Part A value was significantly higher in the axSpA, FMF, and axSpA/FMF group than in the HCs group (p<0.001). CSI-Part A value did not differ significantly between axSpA/FMF, axSpA, and FMF groups (p>0.05). The presence of chronic fatigue syndrome was found to be significantly higher in the FMF group than in the axSpA and HCs groups (p<0.05). Fibromyalgia syndrome was significantly higher in the axSpA/FMF group than in the axSpA, FMF, and HCs groups (p<0.05).

Conclusions: In this study, the CS score was found to be significantly higher in axSpA and FMF patients compared to the HCs group. There was no difference between the disease groups in terms of CS score.

Open access, https://www.cureus.com/articles/187...-axial-spondyloarthritis-and-both-diseases#!/

 

They don't detail how they assessed for "chronic fatigue syndrome".

 

THE CENTRAL SENSITIZATION INVENTORY

The central sensitization inventory: A user’s manual - full paper at SciHub: https://sci-hub.se/10.1111/jabr.12123

 

About all but 2-3 ask about common symptoms of illness, could even work as a ME/CFS questionnaire. This is circular nonsense.

 

Bear with me:

‘Hypothesis- Fairy godparents are invisible intangible beings that act beneficially on a quantum level in people’s lives’.

I was wondering about devising a study looking at fairy godparent activity levels in people’s lives and it strikes me that this Central Sensitivity Inventory would be ideal for this as it is self evident that higher scores on anything health, mood and quality of life related is a clear indicator of fairly godparent activity levels, the higher the score the lower the fairy activity level. This then provides conclusive proof that higher levels of central sensitisation is a direct consequence of low levels of fairy godparent activity and also incidentally proves the existence of fairy godparents.

Central sensitisation, until you have some objective means of measuring it independent of a questionnaire, is as meaningful as my fairy godparent hypothesis.